Exclusive today... maybe not tomorrow?
We’re only one award away today from finishing up our Stevivor Game of the Year (GOTY) 2025 awards program with just that: the game of the year. Today, though, we’re awarding best exclusive of 2025.
This category is a bit fast and loose, and exclusives are becoming weirder and weirder. One game may be console exclusive to PS5, but also offer an iOS version. An Xbox exclusive is likely also available on Windows PC in one form or the other. Most Nintendo games, though, are usually exclusive in the proper sense of the word.
Anyways, with all that out of the way it didn’t actually matter — Stevivor staffers decided that Donkey Kong Bananza was the best exclusive of the year, tipping out other proper exclusives in Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Yotei and Nintendo’s Mario Kart World.
“Donkey Kong Bananza is an excellent return for the leader of the DK Crew,” Matt wrote in our review. “In the same way that Mario Kart World or Breath of the Wild felt like all-new takes on a classic formula, Bananza feels like it’s doing the same in two ways – for the Donkey Kong series itself, and as a guidepost of what we can expect from the Switch 2.
Tomorrow is it: game of 2025. Join us, won’t you? In the meantime, you can catch up on previous awards below.
Stevivor’s Game of the Year (GOTY) Awards 2025
- Best Sports: Rematch
- Best RPG: Clair Obscur Expedition 33
- Best Action-Adventure: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
- Best Multiplayer: Battlefield 6
- Best Ongoing: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024
- Best Indie: Ball x Pit
- Best Audio: Battlefield 6
- Best Narrative: Clair Obscur Expedition 33
- Best Direction: Clair Obscur Expedition 33
- Best Exclusive: Donkey Kong Bananza
- Game of the Year: Clair Obscure Expedition 33
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